hardly dared to look at them, so entirely did I feel out of my place by the side of Mrs. Fry, and so sick for their degraded attitude and position.  If I had been alone with them and their noble teacher I would assuredly have gone and sat down among them.  On the day I was there a poor creature sat in the midst of the congregation attired differently from all the others, who was pointed out to me as being under sentence of transportation for whatever crime she committed.  Altogether I felt broken-hearted for them and ashamed for us.]

My mother has had a letter from my father (he was acting in the provinces), who says he has met and shaken hands with Mr. Harris (his co-proprietor of Covent Garden, and antagonist in our ruinous lawsuit about it).  I wonder what benefit is to be expected from that operation with—­such a person.

Sunday, June 5th. ...  On my return from afternoon service found Mr. Walpole with my mother; they amused me extremely by a conversation in which they ran over, as far as their memories would stretch (near sixty years), the various fashions and absurd modes of dress which have prevailed during that period.  Toupees, fetes, toques, bouffantes, hoops, bell hoops, sacques, polonaises, levites, and all the paraphernalia of horsehair, powder, pomatum, and pins, in the days when court beauties had their heads dressed over-night for the next day’s drawing-room, and sat up in their chairs for fear of destroying the edifice by lying down.  No wonder they were obliged to rouge themselves—­the days when once in a fortnight was considered often enough for ridding the hair of its horrible paste of flour and grease.  We are certainly cleaner than our grandmothers, and much more comfortable, though it is not so long since my own head was dressed a la giraffe, in three bows over pins half a foot high, so that I could not sit upright in the carriage without knocking against the top of it.  My mother’s and Mr. Walpole’s recollections and descriptions were like seeing a set of historical caricatures pass before one.

Monday, June 6th.—­The house was very full at the theater this evening, and Miss C——­ sent me round a delicious fresh bouquet.  I acted well, I think; the play was “Romeo and Juliet.”  It is so very pleasant to return to Shakespeare, after reciting Bianca and Isabella, etc.  I reveled in the glorious poetry and the bright, throbbing reality of that Italian girl’s existence; and yet Juliet is nothing like as nice as Portia—­nobody is as nice as Portia.  But the oftener I act Juliet the oftener I think it ought never to be acted at all, and the more absurd it seems to me to try to act it.  After the play my mother sent a note with the carriage to say she would not go to the ball, so I dressed myself and drove off with my father from the theater to the Countess de S——­’s.  At half-past eleven the ball had not begun.  Mrs. Norton was